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Beach Bytes
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By:
Frances A. Ong
A beach is a stretch of powdery land bordering seas and some inland waters. It is composed mainly of crystals, minerals, rocks and animal shells that have been pounded into a fine consistency by the wind and the waves.
UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS STUDYING 'SINGING' SAND
By JIM BROWN (Northern Life)
There's more to sand than just, well, sand, say three researchers in Laurentian University's department of physics who are studying the noises various sands make.
Dr. Doug Goldsack, Dr. Marcel Leach and a graduate physics student, Cindi Kilkenny, have spent years investigating the mysterious properties of certain types of sand that can cause them to sing, boom, whistle, roar and squeak.
There's even a type of sand in Hawaii that can "bark", said Goldsack, who shook a container of sand to produce a sound very much similar to that of a dog barking. "There's 20 different ways to describe the sounds made by sand in (scientific) literature," he said. Goldsack and Leach have invested the better part of a couple of decades in their research and have been joined in recent years by fourth-year physics student Kilkenny. The threesome have had an article accepted by the London based journal Nature, which will be published shortly. Goldsack and Leach have also been featured on the CBC Radio science show Quirks and Quarks, the Cable News Network and the Discovery Channel.
But there's more than idle curiosity stirring their work. Goldsack, Leach and Kilkenny have found ways to produce the unique sounds made by only a few types of sand by "grinding" the fine particles. That success had been achieved, albeit painstakingly, after more than 1,000 hours of laboratory work. That research has led to speculation that musical sands could eventually lead to more practical applications; such as effective methods of monitoring pollution and environmental degradation or perhaps the creation of a "saser" a device that amplifies sound the way lasers amplify light. Sasers, created by the "acoustic emissions" generated by sand, could share many of the destru ctive powers of lasers, said Leach.
By manipulating the silica gel that binds sand particles, the three researches have been able to make just about any type of sand bark, squeak, boom or sing. "There's a very thin layer of silica gel on the surface of sand particles," said Leach. The interaction of silica and water gives certain sands their unique acoustic properties.
The Laurentian researchers believe those same properties can be created in any type of sand by grinding grains of sand in a mill and applying commercial grade silica gel. The sounds created by sand can help monitor environmental pollution, since sand particles can give off different sounds depending on the surface conditions of the sand. There's no end to the research possibilities of musical sand. Leach speculated even lunar sands could emit some very intriguing sounds. That's something he hopes he'll have a chance to investigate some day.
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